Volodymyr Zelensky spoke via video link from Kyiv at the official opening of this year’s Berlinale on Thursday night, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Met with a standing ovation, Ukraine’s leader called on the film community to take sides in what he described as a battle between “freedom and slavery,” comparing Russia’s invasion of his country to the Berlin Wall.
Zelensky also drew on his own experience as an actor, appealing to colleagues to “break the fourth wall,” and directly address their audiences, the Reuters news agency reported.
The Ukrainian president said: “For many years, Potsdam Square was ‘cut through’ by the Berlin Wall… Today, Russia wants to build the same wall in Ukraine. A wall between us and Europ. To separate Ukraine from its own choice and its own future.”
Sometimes ‘art cannot be neutral’
Zelensky went on to say: “Culture and cinema can be outside politics. But not when it is a policy of aggression. Not when it is a policy of mass crimes, murders, terror, the desire to destroy other countries and other peoples. When it is a policy of total war.”
“That is, the politics of today's Russia,” he told the ceremony.
Ukraine’s leader argued that “under such circumstances and at such times, art cannot be neutral. Cannot be ‘out.’”
Zelensky said that "at such times," if art is indifferent and culture “remains silent,” then they are “in fact, helping evil.”
He thanked the organisers for banning “institutions and persons supporting the Kremlin and films made with Russia’s support” from this year’s festival.
“We appreciate it and are grateful for it,” Zelensky said. "This is really important."
Sean Penn documentary about Zelensky
His own experiences on the very first days of the Russian invasion a year ago are the subject of a Sean Penn documentary, Superpower, which is set to premiere at Berlinale on Friday, Reuters reported.
Polish documentary about Ukraine war
The festival will also feature the premiere of a Polish documentary about the war, Piotr Pawlus and Tomasz Wolski’s In Ukraine, according to news reports.
Friday is day 359 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
(pm/gs)
Source: PAP, Reuters, president.gov.ua